I was first introduced to PHP in 1998 as I had begun looking for an alternative to Microsoft’s Classic ASP and Netscape LiveWire which my consulting company was using extensively at the the time. It was only a few years later after I had joined the Developer Tools & Platforms initiative at Microsoft that I got a call from Brian Goldfarb, who was then also at Microsoft working in the Developer Marketing group. Brian knew that I had done some PHP work prior to joining Microsoft and he was preparing for an executive briefing on “this open source web development technology” that Microsoft was worried about competing against.

For a few years I was the PHP competitive specialist at Microsoft but after a couple of years Microsoft’s PHP strategy started to evolve and the Windows division, along with the IIS team came to believe a better approach was to embrace PHP and work to make it run well on Windows. I spent six more years working with PHP on Windows. At that time, PHP worked on Windows but lacked the performance and stability needed by mission critical production applications.

I met Andi Gutmans (the co-founder of Zend Technologies) as Microsoft contacted Zend to solicit their help with improving the PHP experience on Windows. Around the same time I met Zeev Suraski (the other co-founder at Zend) at a PHP Developer’s event that we were both speaking at.

Over the years Andi and I continued to cross paths and, since Zend’s USA headquarters is in Cupertino CA, and Mozilla’s is in Mountain View, last year I was able to stop by and see the things Zend has been working on. I was amazed.

Andi introduced me to Elaine Lennox, Zend’s CMO. Conversations ensued, the timing is right and so, today I join Zend as Director of Developer Strategy.

What does that mean, exactly. Well, I’m not sure I know, (it’s my first day) but i have a few high level goals that I’ll be focusing on.

Helping the Zend engineering teams understand PHP developer’s needs to that they can build the best possible professional PHP development products.

Ok, but what does that translate to in terms of action ?

Well, it;s only 8:00am on my first day 🙂 but I plan to ….

Build a team of community rock stars

Build tons of great content for PHP developers

Build content that helps developers get the most from Zend Server (including the free version) and Zend Studio

Drive adoption of Zend Server FREE Edition

Grow DevZone

More, more, more…….

I’ve always been enthusiastic about PHP as a language. If you consider the trends toward mobile applications and cloud based computing, PHP presents an even more attractive choice for developers that in the “classic” era of dynamic web applications.

I’m incredibly excited. This feels not just like a great job, but a great opportunity to do exciting and significant things. I’ve spent the last 12 years of my life doing technical community building with a product influence focus, I excited about being able to immerse myself in the PHP community

So I invite you. Use the contact form here on my blog and tell me as a PHP developer or Zend Server / Studio user, what would YOU DO !

+1 working in the open source community! When I was at SourceForge, Mozilla and Zend were on the very short list of companies that could hire me away. Though I’m sad to see the Promote MDN widget gone now … do I need to make a Promote PHP plugin? 😉

This is a great opportunity for you and for Zend. PHP has a stronger Enterprise angle to its products and its culture than some other open-source “cloud” languages/platforms.

In Tulsa Web Devs, many or most PHP developers are also WordPress developers, so maybe enhancing and bridging the connections between those communities would be good? E.g., help WordPress dev’s move between small websites for small businesses and big web portals for big enterprises?

Steve Swickard on
January 28th, 2013 7:38 pm

Joe, lots of luck with your new employer. I use PHP and have the Zend Community Server (free version) installed on my main windows machine. I’ve tried the Zend Studio IDE’s in the past but due their pricing do not currently use them, but the Zend Studio IDE is a great tool.

I’m sure you’ll make a great addition to the Zend team. Look forward to future Zend/blog post.

Thanks
Steve

JoeStagner on
January 28th, 2013 8:04 pm

Thanks Steve, Tell me – what price would Zend Studio have to be for you to justify buying it ?

Mark Henley on
January 28th, 2013 7:43 pm

Congratulations!
Both to you and to Zend for having you. IM(not very)HO the only problem with Microsoft is that you were to bright for that team. BTW- what do I read first for PHP?

Congratulations again!

Mark H.

Dave Mason on
January 28th, 2013 8:09 pm

Congratulations Joe! I’m really happy to see you’ve also successfully started a new career chapter. I look forward to having you try to convince me to use PHP 😉

JoeStagner on
January 28th, 2013 8:10 pm

Thanks Dave – nice to hear from you !

Rey Bango on
January 28th, 2013 9:52 pm

Congrats Joe. I think this is the perfect role for you. PHP (which you’ve told me you love) and both OSS & commercial customers. Nice.

Hearty Congratulations, looking forward some great ideas & solutions for growing PHP community and some Conf’s around in India.

–Sandy

Harsh86 on
January 29th, 2013 2:18 pm

Congratulations.

Can you give some examples of some of the amazing things Zend has been working on?

JoeStagner on
January 29th, 2013 3:36 pm

There are many cool features coming in the new versions of Zend Server and Zend Studio.

The mobile and cloud strategies are at the top of my list and I’ll be writing and screenasting about them soon.

Markus on
January 29th, 2013 9:07 pm

Driving Zend Server CE is gonna be hard, given that we have EasyPHP now! Zend Server CE offered a lot that XAMPP or WAMP didn’t but that is not so anymore!

JoeStagner on
January 29th, 2013 9:45 pm

Wait till you see the free version of 6 🙂

Krishna on
January 29th, 2013 9:36 pm

Congratulations Joe! 🙂 Good luck to you in your new role.

ThomasL on
January 30th, 2013 10:19 am

Congrats Joe, and good luck!

Some things to work on come to mind:
– auto update feature for ZendServer CE (or did i just didn’t find it?)
– Same as Steve: IDE’s pricing. There once was a special offer at about $100, but that was version 5 i think.

@Markus: There’s not only windows users out there 😉

Hama_mama on
February 1st, 2013 2:07 pm

I thought I was the only one that remembers doing web applications in LiveWire! Congrats on the new position